


Please Pass the Evil

by squeequeg



Category: The Thrilling Adventure Hour
Genre: Demonic Possession, Gen, Not Nearly Enough Liquor, Pie, Radio Play Format, Thanksgiving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-16
Updated: 2019-11-16
Packaged: 2021-01-31 14:25:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21447670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squeequeg/pseuds/squeequeg
Summary: Our story begins in a sumptuous townhouse, just as the last dishes are coming out of the oven…Thanksgiving dinner, Beyond Belief style.
Relationships: Frank Doyle/Sadie Doyle
Comments: 3
Kudos: 12





	Please Pass the Evil

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Orichalxos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Orichalxos/gifts).

SPOOKY HAL: It’s time to send the little ones to dreamland, and set your radio’s dial to spooky. Bolt the doors, lock your windows, and steel yourself for mysterious suspense. Meet Frank and Sadie Doyle, the toast of the upper crust, headliners on the society pages...and, oh yes, they see ghosts! 

FRANK: Who cares what evil lurks in the hearts of men!

SADIE: Unless evil’s carrying the martini tray, darling.

*ting*

SPOOKY HAL: Join the Doyles in tonight’s dark episode, “Please Pass the Evil.” Our story begins in a sumptuous townhouse, just as the last dishes are coming out of the oven…

MYRTLE: Oh, oh, the celery root isn’t braising properly! I knew I should have adjusted the temperature earlier! Sadie, would you taste this and tell me if it’s the right texture?

SADIE: Well, it certainly has a texture, Cousin Myrtle. I wouldn’t worry about it too much. You really don’t have to go all out for us. 

MYRTLE: Oh, but it’s our first Thanksgiving, Nelson and I, and we want to make it a good one. I’m just so glad the two of you could come.

SADIE: As are we, dear - Nelson does keep a well-stocked bar, and you would not believe how many liquor stores refuse to be open today.

NELSON: Myrtle, the jellied asparagus isn’t jellying! What do I do?

MYRTLE: Oh no - I’ll be there in a moment, just let me get the cranberry aspic! Sadie, where’s Frank? Is he all right - I do want this dinner to impress the both of you, since you’re both so very modern.

SADIE: Frank is just fine, dear. He’s talking with Nelson’s Great-Aunt Portia.

MYRTLE: Oh no! I’ll -- I’ll go get Nelson.

PORTIA: And over here is where we keep the photo albums. This one is all of my brother Archibald, from when he went adventuring. He was quite the adventurer, was Archibald.

FRANK: Uh-huh, uh-huh, Sadie, for the love of God please get me out of this conversation.

SADIE: Oh, just let her get to the other side of the room and you’ll be fine.

FRANK: Sadie!

PORTIA: And here is where we kept some of his curios from Archibald’s various trips out west and also east. Right here above the liquor cabinet.

FRANK: Sadie, I never doubted you. 

SADIE: Of course not, darling.

*ting*

FRANK: I do love an adventurous liquor cabinet. Say, those are quite the little tchotchkes.

PORTIA: Archibald always used to bring me something from his travels. Until he died of the malaria, of course. Well, I say malaria, but I rather think the fifteen blow-darts he had in him had something to do with it. He was quite the adventurer, was Archibald. Pour me another sherry, would you, young man?

NELSON: Great-Aunt Portia, you’re not bothering our guests, are you? She’s not bothering you, is she, Frank?

FRANK: Oh, no. I’ve been hearing some delightful stories about how many people have had their appendixes and other various organs removed on the kitchen table.

PORTIA: Dining room table, dear, that’s why we have to have the tablecloth. 

FRANK: So it is. 

NELSON: I’m afraid she insisted on making half of the dishes for today’s Thanksgiving dinner. Myrtle wanted it to be a lot more modern, but Great-Aunt Portia is a bit old-fashioned.

FRANK: Nothing wrong with old-fashioned. Speaking of --

SADIE: Here you go, darling.

*ting*

NELSON: She has her own way of doing things. Used Great-Uncle Archie’s machete to cut the squash for her pumpkin-squash pie.

FRANK: You mean that Consecrated Blade of the Underground Cult of Kargeth-Fwat that’s hanging over the mantel there?

PORTIA: I’ve always used that for the squash. You can’t use a regular knife, not for squash.

SADIE: Does it still have an edge?

PORTIA: I sharpened it before using it, dear.

SADIE: Oh, goody. I need something to cut these lemons. 

MYRTLE: Nelson, I need your help! The Oysters Rockefeller don’t look right!

FRANK: Doesn’t bode well for the Salmon Carnegie either.

NELSON: Oh, Myrtle already told you about dessert?

SADIE: I think I’ll stick to the pie.

PORTIA: You can’t go wrong with squmpkin. Pour me another sherry, would you, young lady?

SADIE: Certainly.

PORTIA: Thank you, dear. Now over here, we have the darts that Archibald brought back with him from the east, and also the west. 

FRANK: Would these be the darts that killed him?

PORTIA: Well, that and the malaria, and probably also the curare. He was quite the adventurer, was Archibald.

MYRTLE: Here we are! I’ve got Great-Aunt Portia’s turkey, and Nelson is bringing out our curried seafood in gelatine.

FRANK: What a combination! Sadie, fortify me.

*ting*

PORTIA: Myrtle dear, you’ve forgotten the giblet gravy.

MYRTLE: Well, I thought --

PORTIA: Never mind, I’ll go get it. Pour me another sherry, would you, young man?

NELSON: Myrtle, where do I put the savory poached gooseberries? You told me to put them out with the garnishes, but there really isn’t room on the table.

MYRTLE: Maybe if we clear some of the stuffing?

SADIE, FRANK AND PORTIA: Don’t touch the stuffing!

PORTIA: The stuffing is just right, dear! I do hope there’s enough. Ah, here’s the gravy --

NELSON: I’ll just take this back to the kitchen --

*CRASH*  
*BANG*  
*YELP*  
*sound of one plate spinning forlornly*

SADIE: Well, there goes the gravy.

FRANK: And the gooseberries.

MYRTLE: And the rug!

PORTIA: Oh, it’s no trouble. There’s more gravy on the stove. And since it all ended up on the rug, we don’t have to worry about --

*rising, ominous hum*

NELSON: I’m less worried about the rug and more worried about the giblets. Should they be glowing like that?

SADIE: Portia dear, what recipe did you use?

PORTIA: The same one as always. I suppose I may have used a bit much flour for the roux.

*hum intensifies*

FRANK: It’s not the gravy so much as the giblets, and...Myrtle, what are these garnishes?

MYRTLE: Candied asphodel! I hear it’s all the rage in Paris.

SADIE: Well, Paris.

PORTIA: There’s nothing to worry about, dear. Why, the rug caught all the stain, so we don’t even need to worry about cleaning up dear Archibald’s old summoning circle on the floor.

FRANK: What.

*hum rises to a screech, followed by an eldritch wind*  
*unnerving squelch*

YZGDIEL: It is I, the Demon Yzgdiel, summoned at last and freed from my fragmented prison!

PORTIA: He was quite the adventurer, was Archibald. 

SADIE: Frank…

FRANK: I know, Sadie.

SADIE: Frank, the turkey is talking to us.

FRANK: Technically, the eldritch horror possessing the turkey is talking to us. Though as it doesn’t really have a head, I’m not sure how.

YZGDIEL: Foolish mortal, I vibrate the dermis of this carcass so that I might produce your halting speech.

FRANK:...Not exactly reassuring.

MYRTLE: I told you we should have gone with a fully modern dinner!

NELSON: Well, I --

PORTIA: Nonsense! It’d just be in your curried whatsit if we had. Pour me another sherry, young lady, there’s a dear.

FRANK: Now see here, Yzgdiel, I happen to know a thing or two about eldritch horrors, and I’m pretty sure you’re not even really here. It’d take a lot more than a few turkey organs and flowers on a summoning circle to unleash something like you.

YZGDIEL: Such as the presence of the seven silver disks that ornamented my subterranean prison, each no larger than a broken potsherd?

PORTIA: We’ve been using those scruts in the plum pudding for decades and never had any problems.

YZGDIEL: I know. You set fire to me repeatedly.

PORTIA: Not every year.

SADIE: Yes, that’d be a waste of good liquor. 

FRANK: Speaking of which --

SADIE: Oh yes, dear.

*ting*

FRANK: Well, this is a pickle we’ve gotten ourselves into.

NELSON: Look, if no one else is going to do anything, then I will. Hey! Turkey!

YZGDIEL: Mortal fool!

NELSON: Time to carve!

FRANK: No, don’t!

*screech, splat, unearthly howl*

YZGDIEL-AS-NELSON: Ha! Mortal fool indeed! Think to stab me with profane steel and I will ride it into your fleshly body!

MYRTLE: He’s not fleshly! He’s been working out!

YZGDIEL-AS-NELSON: Oh, Myrtle, that’s really sweet of you! 

YZGDIEL-AS-NELSON: Silence, fool!

PORTIA: Don’t you talk to my great-niece-in-law that way! And don’t you lodge an incorporeal form in my great-nephew! 

YZGDIEL-AS-NELSON: I will stand no harsh words from you, crone!

PORTIA: The nerve!

FRANK: Well, now it’s a proper Thanksgiving. Family members yelling at each other. Really brings me back.

SADIE: Frank, are we still in that pickle?

FRANK: Afraid so, Sadie darling. 

SADIE: Would the holy knife thing from the lemons work?

YZGDIEL-AS-NELSON: The Consecrated Blade of Kargeth-Fwat was used to bind me, but it will serve you no longer! Try it, and I will ride the steel into your soul!

FRANK: Yes, that’s the difficulty of it. The blade would banish him again, but one, whoever stabbed Nelson would then host Yzgdiel, and two, we’d have a stabbed Nelson on our hands.

MYRTLE: Oh, no!

SADIE: Oh, is that all? Here.

FRANK: Sadie, what are you doing?

SADIE: Vaudeville, darling. Ziggy, dear? Hold still.

YZGDIEL-AS-NELSON: What --

*SPLAT*  
*diminishing eldritch howl*

NELSON: Why -- what -- did you just hit me in the face with a pie?

SADIE: Indeed I did!

FRANK: With excellent aim. 

SADIE: It did make me thirsty.

FRANK: Well, we can’t have that.

*ting*

PORTIA: I did say that you can’t go wrong with squmpkin.

MYRTLE: You’re really all right, Nelson?

NELSON: Just fine, I think. A little too much nutmeg.

PORTIA: I never do manage to get that part right.

NELSON: Tastes vaguely like banishment. Is the turkey still good? It hasn’t gone wild?

SADIE: There’s always Maker’s Mark.

FRANK: It might be a bit smokier than usual, but it should be fine. Although if I were you, I’d go drop that plum pudding in some holy water instead of serving it.

PORTIA: Oh, well, I’ve always thought the hard sauce is the best part anyway. Pour me another sherry, would you, young man?

FRANK: Great-Aunt Portia, I can’t help thinking Sadie and I may have found a kindred spirit in you.

*ting*

SPOOKY HAL: It looks like the Doyles have ducked the turkey this time. Join the Doyles next time when they once again walk beyond belief in a spooky tale titled “Tryptophan Through The Tulips.”

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to Orichalxos, yet again, for humoring my ideas. 
> 
> Also, I'm aware bourbon isn't really the Doyles' preferred liquor, but I figure they've gone through most of the gin by the time the cheese plate comes out.


End file.
